**5.1 Mathematical identity:** *how did you experience math as a young learner***?**

We often begin our workshops with adults with a four-corners activity using these picture books: *The Little Engine That Could* by Watty Piper [84]*; Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!* by Dr. Suess [85]*; Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day* by Judith Viorst [86]*;* and *Know and Follow Rules* by Cheri J. Meiners [87] (see **Figure 3**). We ask them to reflect on their experiences as a young math learner and pick the book they most identify with. In each group, many adults identify with the book, *Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day*. Some will describe the stress of having to solve 50 multiplication problems in one minute and feeling inadequate every time they did not make it to the end or made a mistake somewhere on their paper. Others will describe playing *Around the World* and the pit in their stomach every time it was their turn to answer a question for their team. Fortunately, many (and often the same people) will have had positive experiences where they identify with the book *The Little Engine that Could*, and remember math teachers that believed in them, inspired them to keep trying, and stuck with them until they figured it out. Some people will identify with the book, *Oh the Thinks You Can Think*, and explain that they saw math as a puzzle and loved the feeling of figuring out how to solve the different puzzles and challenges. We believe that honoring adults' experiences as math learners is a critical place to start this work because we know that parents' and teachers' feelings about math, and particularly math anxiety, can be passed on to children [67, 72, 88, 89]. We discuss as a group how we can interrupt that cycle of math anxiety so that they can provide their children and the children they work with positive experiences.

**Figure 3.** *Four corners activity.*
